Sunday, October 24, 2010

I have been sort of busy doing some videos of my window frame drawing lisp set.

The above is an experiment to see if video embedding works.

The other videos can be found on youtube, just type bilrocad into the search box.

We had a long weekend here in Auckland, and I have been trying to find out how to stop huffing sounds when doing a video. (Maybe I should get a life? ...or paint the fence???)

For probably equally strange reasons I started doing a test of my Autocad skills on Brainbench, but made a bit of a hash of it and got a case of the "can't be bothereds" half way through. If you are tempted to do the test, make sure you have Autocad up and running before you start!

Friday, October 8, 2010

Sometimes I end up doing electrical drawings, which is quite irritating, because I'm not sure what I'm doing. I did actually get a New Zealand Certificate, Electrical in 1988, which I never ever used. I did go for the odd job, only to be told (no doubt quite rightly!), how long were you a tradesman electrician? On hearing the answer, I was told to sling my hook.

So I know what a relay is etc, but how everything hangs together and why is a bit of a mystery to me.

Recently, I tried to look for a lisp that would allow me to align some text, and in the process of looking ended up at a blog page of a man called Nate Holt. My first reaction was: "Wow! This guy can really do a good job explaining things!" Check out his blog yourself at:

I had a look at some the videos, and have come away quite convinced that this would be the way to go if you had to do Autocad Electrical drawings.

Last week, one of my co-workers popped his head up and asked:

"Hey, how come I have updated the file on my desktop and the other one has also updated?"

I cannot claim the high ground here, because it was about 5 years ago that I discovered that Windows Explorer loves to duplicate the display of it's folders, only to be told "Everyone knows that!" Which apparently is not true, because this man did not know either.

Whoever made Windows Explorer decided to make it "easier to use" and in the process removed it's logicality. By the way, in case you did not know, you can access Windows Explorer by right clicking the Start button.

Here is the top level of the "Desktop" shown in Windows Vista, notice the folder called Pictures:

Double click on Pictures and you get a view of the folders in there:

Then, close everything up and you get:

Next, double click on Computer and then open up Users:

Now double click on Pictures....there are the same damn folders!

Which reminds me of the Microsoft Helicopter Joke:

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when anelectrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronicnavigation and communication equipment. Due to the clouds and hazethe pilot could not determine his position or course to steer to theairport. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drewa handwritten sign and held it in the helicopter's window. The signsaid "WHERE AM I ?" in large letters.

People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew alarge sign and held it in a building window. Their sign said, "YOUARE IN A HELICOPTER." The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map anddetermine the course to steer to SEATAC (Seattle/Tacoma) airport andlanded safely.

After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the"YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position. Thepilot responded, "I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT buildingbecause they gave me a technically correct but completely uselessanswer."